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Author Topic: Requirements solution description  (Read 3753 times)

thomaskilian

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Requirements solution description
« on: October 19, 2004, 03:06:57 am »
Hi all,
I ran into a problem which I could not solve by myself: Often I have a set of requirements I pull out of a specification that need a certain answer. Name and Note for requirements are already used to capture the requirement itself. Now I want to describe the solution in more or less short terms. Once I'm finished I'd like to be able to gather all requirements and according answers to produce a "draft solution document". Does anyone have an idea how to do this best in EA?

CJ

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Re: Requirements solution description
« Reply #1 on: October 19, 2004, 05:20:24 am »
G'day Thomas,

How about tags?
Cheers and best regards.

thomaskilian

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Re: Requirements solution description
« Reply #2 on: October 19, 2004, 07:26:41 am »
Hi CJ,
I use tags for short answers (and I call the tag "Answer"  ;D). For longer descriptions I add a file reference where I also can place pictures. Somehow that works but it is awkward. I'm looking for a smarter solution.

sargasso

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Re: Requirements solution description
« Reply #3 on: October 19, 2004, 04:14:26 pm »
You betcha!  I am in the same situation.

I currently:
1. use element issues for the questions and answers.  2. Use file links back into the reqts spec to retain the "original" reference.
3. use a tag for the original reference paragrah/ heading/point number
4. Put the imported text in quotes at the front of the Notes.
5. Add pseudo tags around the original text to render html doc in italics/colour
6. Add the solution/clarification text below as a normal note.

Unweildy - nah!  ;D

But it does give me some control over the output - issues dont get lost as I can include them in rtf docs (and they are certainly visible in the html docs).

Where's Fluxtah and his request for formattable notes fields eh?

Bruce



"It is not so expressed, but what of that?
'Twere good you do so much for charity."

Oh I forgot, we aren't doing him are we.

thomaskilian

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Re: Requirements solution description
« Reply #4 on: October 20, 2004, 01:15:30 am »
Hi Bruce,
fluxtah's last post is some 3 months ago. Hope he's back soon.

If you take element issues, I see two issues (;D) with that: First is that they are related to a certain element. Second you are quite limited in printing / exporting.

From my point of view it would be nice to have special file links which could be embedded via the RTF documentation. Currently I do that by myself using an awkward PERL script that extracts requirements recursively out of a certain tree location an mixes refenced RTF files under certain conditions. In that way I can produce a complete documentation which I can hand out to the customer. The disadvantage: very slow, buggy and the resulting RTF files are huge.

I'm really longing for improvements here  ::)

EDIT: Just found out that by adding #FILES# in the RTF template the associated files are printed. Maybe I could use a Word macro to actually include these files.

Btw.: Is there any documentation for #TEXT#, #FILES# etc. tokens?
« Last Edit: October 20, 2004, 08:31:56 am by thomaskilian »

Gabor

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Re: Requirements solution description
« Reply #5 on: October 25, 2004, 01:07:09 am »
I'm using the ordinary Issues element for questions and answers from my customers.

Put them into a Questions folder.

The issue name is the question (may be as long, as 110 char in three rows).
The answers I put into the note. If I got the answer, I change the status from proposed to the Approved, that changes the left sided column from yellow to blue.

I put these "Question" issues onto the requirements folder. If I got an answer, and think this is a requirement, I create a Requirement element, name it as requirement text, and add note as needed. Then create Realization dependency from the Requirement to the question.

I can color the requriements differently from the questions, to get a better look. For examle all requirements are pinks, all questions all yelows

If I create an rtf documentation on the question folder, that shows only the issues and object name, then I get all the questions, and answer, that I can send to my customers as needed.

If I create an Implementation documentation (Project/Documentatio/Implementation details...) on the question folder, I get all the questions, that became a requirement. If I create a dependency documentation on the requirement folder (Project/Documentatio/Dependency details...), I get, wich questions comprises the base of the requirements.

If I watch the requirement diagram, I visually see, how the questions are releated to requirements, and wich questions are answered, and wich of them not.

I can connect the question to any element, in any folder.

Morover, I can create subfolders for questions for speciale cases.

I can create rtf document for questions, created/modfied after selected date, so I can mail only the new questions to my customers.

This method works well for me.

Gabor
« Last Edit: October 25, 2004, 01:09:29 am by Gabor »

thomaskilian

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Re: Requirements solution description
« Reply #6 on: October 25, 2004, 03:04:02 am »
Hi Gabor and Bruce,
thanks for your feedback. I'll try and see if this works for me  :)
If anyone likes to have my PERL-documenter I'm willing to share it (just drop me a private message). For the time being it's nearly undocumented but for real PERL freaks not really a drawback  ;)
« Last Edit: October 25, 2004, 03:10:30 am by thomaskilian »